[00:00:06] Hello, my name is Sally Moriarty Flask. Welcome to: From His Word to Our Hearts, my weekly Bible study podcast. Together we will explore the readings that will be proclaimed at the Catholic Mass this Sunday, July 21, 2024, which is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
[00:00:27] This week's episode is entitled: "Being Good Shepherds" and in these readings we will explore how all of us bear the responsibility of being good leaders and faithful followers, because those two things are not mutually exclusive.
[00:00:45] As we journey through the readings this week, consider the following: do we make prayer enough of a priority in our lives? And if we don't, are we willing to change that?
[00:00:57] Let's begin in prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you for the gift of this day. We praise you and thank you for the gift of this time together. Open our hearts and our minds to what you want us to hear.
[00:01:17] We can be recalcitrant sheep, so help us to understand what we need to do to be good sheep, to follow you, to be good disciples and listen to you. And once we know how to follow, give us the strength - teach us - how to be good, strong, loving leaders. And we ask this through Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
[00:01:44] Now that we've opened our hearts and our minds in prayer, let's listen to what God is telling us this week in the scriptures. The Gospel this week is from the Gospel of St. Mark, chapter 6, verses 30 to 34.
[00:02:00] "The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, 'Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest awhile.' For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in a boat to a lonely place by themselves.
[00:02:20] Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them.
[00:02:28] As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things."
[00:02:41] So let's go back to the beginning of the Gospel here, this passage. The apostles returned to Jesus. Remember last week we talked about them being sent out on mission, sent out two by two. So this is their return from that mission.
[00:02:58] And just like anybody that comes back from a trip that were so excited, they wanted to tell Jesus everything they did. So they "told him all they had done and taught." So Jesus then says to them: "Come away by yourselves [...] and rest" because Jesus, himself, is so acutely aware of all of the demands on him and on his time. And he knows that he is forming his apostles for the ministry that they will need to take on after his Passion, Death and Resurrection. He needs to prepare them for that. So he is trying to teach them the importance of taking time for themselves because that rest - rest and renewal - is so crucial for the continued success of their mission. And that's a good reminder to us, too. We get so wrapped up in what we're doing... oh my gosh, I've got such... look at my to do list for today.. I've got so many things I need to do and I need to do A, B, C, D and oh, the kids have to go here, I need to go shopping, and I need to do the laundry, and I need to cook, and I need to clean. Yes, all that is important, but if we don't eat, if we don't sleep, if we don't rest, we become ineffective. And that's what Jesus is teaching his apostles.
[00:04:28] As much as your mission is important, as much as what you will do is crucial, you still need to take time for yourself and that's not a bad thing.
[00:04:43] So he tells them, "come away."
[00:04:48] And he said, and Mark tells us: "For many were coming and going." So the reason for that is Jesus was starting to make a name for himself in and around the area of the Sea of Galilee. He was becoming known, unfortunately in some circles, as sort of a wonder worker. He had performed miracles, he'd healed people, he'd driven out demons.
[00:05:17] And so a lot of people were coming because they're like... oh, oh, I want to see the latest miracle... oh, I want to see this wonder worker... I want to see what he does... let him impress me.
[00:05:27] Because people were being drawn to Christ, he was absolutely aware of the fact that everybody needed some time alone, he himself... and if you - as you - read through the scriptures, the more you read through the scriptures, you realize that any time Jesus approached a major decision, any important undertaking, he always went off by himself to pray. He knew the importance of that intimate and continued relationship with the Father and he knew that that would give him strength. So that's a good reminder to us.
[00:06:07] So Mark tells us that "they went away in a boat." And understand... his mission, his time, his experiences, his preaching was done in and around mostly the town of Capernaum, which is on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. So when he says they went in a boat, he's talking about getting into a fishing boat and going across the Sea of Galilee. They get in a boat and go to a "lonely place," a deserted place.
[00:06:42] That becomes important because while it's crucial for us in mission to not be alone, there are times that we do need to have a little bit of alone time... with time to pray. I have a sign that hangs in the foyer of my house that says that we need to tune out the world because the world's loud and noisy and God whispers. So we have to take time away from all of the chaos, all of the input, all of the cell phones, all of the text messages, all of the notifications, all of the phone calls, and just listen to God speaking to us rather than the world.
[00:07:36] That's the importance of a lonely place, so that we can listen to God. So... "many [people] saw them going."
[00:07:44] "They ran there." The importance of the word "ran" is to illustrate that people, regardless of why they were going to Jesus, they were drawn to him by his divinity, by the power that he was able to exude. You know, I always thought when the apostles were first called, when the disciples were first called... what would make men, who were successful fishermen - businessmen who had their own lives and their own houses, what would make them simply walk away from everything they had and follow this itinerant preacher? So if you think about it that way, there had to have been something, some quality, some charismatic draw that just brought people out of their lives, out of themselves, to follow this man. And that, that's what I think people saw. That's why they ran. They were drawn to that. They wanted to see more of it. They wanted to experience more of it.
[00:09:02] And now let's not lose track of what Mark says here then... "they ran there on foot" from all over the town. So that's... people are coming from far and wide and "got there ahead of them." I think that is a fascinating phrase: "got there ahead of them."
[00:09:21] People had to guess where they were headed, where that destination may have been. Now, I have been to Israel. I have actually been on the Sea of Galilee in a boat. It's not that big. So if they were watching, there's a good chance they could probably predict. But still, that also would have given Jesus and the disciples - who were fishermen - the opportunity to change direction, which they did not do. And I think that's a detail we also can't lose sight of. So people guessed where they were headed... they guessed their destination... they got there ahead of them. Jesus and the disciples still went there. And so this place is no longer deserted. It's no longer a place of encounter, of intimacy, of privacy, and of quiet and peace. So now it's... imagine going to pray to the Lord and all of a sudden you're surrounded by a concert going crowd.
[00:10:35] Not exactly a great way to encounter the Lord or to spend some time in quiet prayer because now the loud, chaotic world has just followed you. So I think those are important details. We can't lose sight of the fact that those details are there. Mark doesn't include them for no reason... he has a reason. So what happens when they all arrive on that distant shore from where they set out and they get out of the boat?
[00:11:06] Jesus looks and sees this great crowd that is gathered there.
[00:11:13] And instead of looking at everyone with like, oh, well, dog-gone-it, that's not what I intended. Although I'm sure that thought flitted through his brain... it certainly would have flitted through mine. He looks at them "and he had compassion on them." Let's dwell in that word just for a moment. The word compassion is a compound of two separate words: the word |com| which means with, and |passio| which is passion or suffering.
[00:11:50] Those two things put together get us a little bit closer of what the word compassion actually means.
[00:12:00] It doesn't mean having pity. Pity is what flows downward from someone who is in a position of authority. No, no, no, compassion - this is Jesus, in all of his humanity... yes, he was fully divine, but he was also fully human. This is Jesus in all of his humanity, looking at the people surrounding him and feeling what they feel, seeing what they see, experiencing what they have experienced, and doing it right alongside of them, suffering with them.
[00:12:43] And that is a crucial word. We need to really understand that Jesus, in his full humanity, lived and experienced the exact same emotions that we do.
[00:12:59] Because he never married there are certain experiences that he never had, but he had a mother... he had a human adoptive father whom we know he lost. The Gospels relate that - that Joseph died, so we know that he experienced the loss of a parent. We know that he moved from place to place because the Gospels tell us that. We know that he went into exile in Egypt. We know that he came back. We know that he traveled with his disciples. We know that he had friends. He had so many of the same experiences that we have as we live our lives. So that is another big part of what gives him the ability to understand... and to feel... and to experience... and to suffer along with us. And why does he have compassion on them? Well, Mark tells us "because they were like sheep without a shepherd." Now that whole idea of sheep without a shepherd, we're going to encounter that in our first reading, which is from the prophet Jeremiah, but that: 'like sheep without a shepherd' is a metaphor for God's people without sound leadership. In the book of the prophet Ezekiel, God says, through Ezekiel, I myself will shepherd my people. So God is the perfect example of what a good leader, a good shepherd, should be. So when there are not good leaders, when people are not - when people in authority over us or those who have influence on us - when they don't act appropriately, when they don't act ethically, when they don't act morally, we have the right to turn away from that leadership... it's not appropriate, it's not accurate, it's not leading us where we need to go.
[00:15:11] And again, we'll talk about this in Jeremiah, which is our First Reading for this coming Sunday. But Jeremiah is in a period where there's a lot of really bad leaders and a lot of really bad kings. So Jesus has compassion because they are "like a sheep without a shepherd." Now, what's important about sheep here? And you'll remember when I talked at the beginning, I said, you know, we need to be good shepherds but we also need to be good followers. We need to be good leaders and good followers. So what are faithful sheep? What is Jesus talking about here when he says sheep? Well, first of all, he's literally talking about the little fluffy things that go baaa... he's talking about sheep. He's talking about people as being sheep and not because he doesn't like people. He does, but he sees the weaknesses in them. Sheep can be vulnerable, so we can be vulnerable to outside forces.
[00:16:12] Sometimes sheep are likely to scatter. So it's so easy for us to become scatterbrained to allow ourselves to be taken and pulled by the vagaries of life and by the currents of events and time and lose sight of - lose track of - and lose sight of where we're supposed to be.
[00:16:36] Sheep can be subject to predators.
[00:16:39] Honestly, so can we. It is so easy. I mean, there's the predators that immediately come to mind, like online scams and people that are trying to steal things from us, people that are trying to take things from us. Those are certainly predators, but predators of our thoughts and our ideas and our time. We need to make sure that what we're doing is appropriate and that we're doing it for the right reasons and at the right time. And then sheep can just be easily led astray - so many times. If a new social media star comes out and they have: oh, look at me... look at what I'm doing... look at this, this has gone viral. But what if it's not the right message? What if it's not a healthy message? So many times we see our kids, our young people, being overwhelmed by the bad messages that they see on social media. They're overwhelmed by: you have to do this... you have to own this... you have to be this... you have to look like this... you have to... NO, you don't!
[00:18:02] You have to care about yourself.
[00:18:09] And we can be just as easily led astray. If you talk to parents, they will tell you they are just as addicted to their cell phones as their kids are.
[00:18:23] Not a good thing to admit, but a truth, something we need to acknowledge. So it's easy to be led astray and to follow the wrong message. And that's what we have to be careful for - or careful of - rather.
[00:18:39] So when he has compassion on them, because they're like sheep without a shepherd, what does he do? What does Jesus do? "He began to teach them many things." So in this half of a sentence here, we see the full length and breadth of Jesus in his Incarnation, because teaching is Jesus exercising his divine power. So we have, on the one hand, his compassion, his full humanity on display, and then his teaching, his full divinity on display. And that is a beautiful, beautiful example of Jesus as our Good Shepherd.
[00:19:29] Remember, teaching is - when Jesus teaches - he's feeding the mind. He's satisfying that spiritual hunger that we all have. And that's why it's so important for us to start everything from prayer, to devote ourselves to prayer, so we can listen and hear what we're supposed to feel and do and be, so that we are then given the tools we need to go out and be the people that we need to do and be.
[00:19:58] So Pope Francis said, about the Good Shepherd - meaning Jesus, of course - but he said about the Good Shepherd: that the Good Shepherd walks ahead of, with, and behind his people. So let's break that down a little bit. When Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, walks ahead of us, it is to provide us vision and direction. Think of his statement in the Gospel of John: " I am... I am the way, the truth, and the light."
[00:20:33] So he walks ahead of us, leading us where we're supposed to go. He walks with us.
[00:20:41] He helps us to bear our burdens, because whatever burden we have to shoulder... whatever burden we have to carry... Jesus has already carried a heavier burden. And every burden is lighter and easier when it's shared with another. Again that, like last week, the two by two going out on mission, right? Every burden is easier to carry when it's shared. So the Good Shepherd is there going with us to share the burdens that we have to carry. And then he walks behind us. And, why? Why? What is the importance of a shepherd walking behind us? Well, I'll tell you. It's very simple.
[00:21:26] He goes behind so he can gather anyone that's left behind. He can gather the lost and the broken and the wounded. And he is there with us, his people, always to carry us, to be with us.
[00:21:45] That beautiful last part of Mark's Gospel, the compassion, the teaching, the humanity, and the divinity of Christ, captured in absolutely full and beautiful display.
[00:22:00] Okay, so now we're going to go to the first reading, which is from the book of the prophet Jeremiah. It's Jeremiah, chapter 23, verses 1 to 6.
[00:22:10] "'Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!' says the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: 'You have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.'"
[00:22:31] "'Behold, I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.'"
[00:22:49] "'I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, says the LORD.'"
[00:23:01] "'Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: The LORD is our righteousness.'"
[00:23:29] All right, so now let's go back and let's break down this Jeremiah a little bit. So first you need to understand that Jeremiah was one of the four major prophets in the Old Testament. Those prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. So Jeremiah is one of the four major prophets, sometimes called the prophet of doom. And there's - unfortunately, I always feel bad for poor Jeremiah - but there's a reason for that.
[00:24:00] When Jeremiah is first called, you need to understand, he was of a priestly family. He lived near Jerusalem, which is in the kingdom of Judah, the Southern Kingdom. And he was called during the reign of the king Josiah, who was actually a pretty good king. Out of all the kings, certainly not one of the best, but nowhere near some of the worst kings. He actually instituted some pretty decent reforms. He was - his intent was - to be a good ruler. So he himself was not a horrible king.
[00:24:36] Unfortunately, he died ignominiously in battle on a battlefield. So that's what happens to poor Josiah. But he was then succeeded by several really, really bad kings.
[00:24:54] So when taken as a whole... the book of Jeremiah is dealing with the nation in crisis.
[00:25:00] That's kind of the book in a nutshell, the history of the book, because I think it's important for us to know that, and it's also important to know that poor Jeremiah, while he was of a priestly family himself, he very much preached his message reluctantly. He felt that he was too young... he felt that he wasn't up to the task and not that he was too young or wasn't up to the task, but most often his message fell on deaf ears, which is really very unfortunate for poor Jeremiah. So he's often called, as I said, the prophet of doom. So let's go back to the beginning. "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture." That analogy refers to the bad kings - and the bad leadership - that exist for such a long time in the Northern Kingdom, the kingdom of Israel. And Jeremiah then goes on to say: "thus says the Lord" - whenever a prophet uses those specific words, that is the key to his listeners that this message has come to him from God and he is speaking directly for God. So who's he speaking to? "Concerning the shepherds who care for my people" - this message is directed specifically to those kings, those bad kings, that series of, like, five of them - that all got progressively worse and worse and led the people down a path that they really never should have gone. And what does God say to them? He said: "You" - you specifically - "have scattered my floc, and have driven them away." He's predicting here the Babylonian captivity... he's predicting the overthrow of the kingdom and of the kings by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and the people being taken into captivity in Babylon, being pulled away from their homes.
[00:27:00] And why is that happening? Because "you have not attended to them."
[00:27:06] A covenant - the covenant relationship that God has with his people - a covenant is not like a contract. It's not like anything that we have in our world. A covenant is a special, unique bond... relationship between God and his people. There is nothing else that relates to that. It's not a contract...it's not a family... this is a covenant relationship: the people belong to God and God belongs to them. And nothing else in this world is like that. So what God is saying is: you have not been faithful to the covenant that I made with you. You have not kept up your end of this relationship and so there's going to be consequences. Think about this. This is one of those times when so many people look at God in the Old Testament and say: oh, look... see, he's terrible... look, this is a bad God... this is a vengeful God... this is a God that, that causes people to be hurt, and... No, no, no, no, that's not it! If you are a parent, think of when your kids were little and you're taking them to the store and you say: oh, don't run out into the street without me... hold my hand, don't go without me. Not because you don't trust them, but because you know there are things out there that aren't safe. There are things we don't want them to experience the consequences of, so we prevent them from doing that. But as they get older, you have to give kids more and more freedom. Right? That's part of growing up. That's part of learning how to be an independent person, an adult, a responsible person. God does not prevent us from experiencing the consequences of our own bad actions. And that's where I think God gets a bad rap in the Old Testament because he allows the kings of Israel, and unfortunately then the people - by extension, to experience the consequences of their actions. He's not being a vengeful God. He's being a parent who's allowing his children to learn the lesson themselves because they won't listen... they won't learn it by listening to him. So what does he say then? He says: "Behold, I will attend to you for your evil doings [...] I will gather the remnant of my flock" Realize the words there: "I will bring them back [...] I will set shepherds over them." This section of the reading really stresses God's action here. Yes, I will allow you to experience the results - and the consequences - of your actions but then - just like a parent who goes and picks up the little one who has fallen and skinned their knees... you know what? I'm going to pick you up and I'm going to help you and I'm going to make things better.
[00:30:17] Jeremiah goes on to speak for the Lord, and he says (and this is what is called an oracle of salvation - It's focused on the line of King David, probably the greatest... David and Solomon are the two greatest kings... David is always looked at historically as the greatest king in the history of Israel), so he says: "Behold, the days are coming [...] when I will raise up for David" - and any heir of David is a legitimate heir to the throne of the kingdom of Israel - "I will raise up [...] a righteous Branch" - someone who is just, who is moral, who acts in a proper and appropriate manner, who does the will of the Lord, who keeps the covenant - "and he shall reign as king and deal wisely."
[00:31:13] He will "execute justice and righteousness." Look at what God says through Jeremiah here in his days... Judah (which is the Southern Kingdom - the Southern Kingdom - will be saved and Israel - the Northern Kingdom will dwell securely.
[00:31:32] So the entire people, whether they have been - whether they have been separated as the two tribes in the south in the kingdom of Judah, or whether they have been separated and they are part of the ten tribes in the north in the kingdom of Israel - everyone will be saved and everyone will dwell securely. So that is that image of God, the loving Father, picking up his people and spraying a little Bactine © on the skinned knee and putting on a band-aid, right? He's taking care of his people.
[00:32:10] And how are we going to know who that is? By what name will he be called?
[00:32:17] That name is: "the LORD is our righteousness." Now, in the New American Bible, that word is translated as justice. So if you hear the phrase the LORD is our justice, that's the new American Bible's way of saying that. But either way... righteousness... justice... it's the same person. And who is that legitimate heir to the house of David?
[00:32:45] Well, of course, we see that - through the lens of the New Testament - we see that as Jesus. The Gospel of Mark is showing Jesus as the Good Shepherd, whereas the passage from Jeremiah - that we just read - contrasts Jesus' righteousness with the injustice of the bad leadership of Jeremiah's time.
[00:33:12] So that is, I think, a reminder to us to be careful who and what we listen to and what leaders we choose to follow.
[00:33:33] Because if what we're listening to, and the people that we follow, aren't taking us down the path of good ethics... they're not taking us down the path of righteousness... if they're not just... if they are not moral... then they're leading us astray.
[00:33:54] And we need to turn away from that leadership and follow the will of God. And that can be a difficult choice.
[00:34:03] Our Psalm this week is probably one of the most well known Psalms in the entire book of Psalms. It is Psalm 23. This Psalm is attributed directly to King David, and it's very, very often used for funeral liturgies. I spent years helping people in my parish plan the funeral liturgies for family members and friends that passed away and this Psalm brings so much calm and so much peace to people. So it's very, very commonly used. It is an individual prayer of confidence in God and it describes a Good Shepherd. So the response is: "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want." And here are the verses.
[00:34:55] "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
[00:35:21] You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
[00:35:29] Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever."
[00:35:39] Okay, so that leaves us with the reading from the book of Ephesians. This is Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 13 to 18.
[00:35:49] "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father."
[00:36:41] So again, this is the second of five passages that we're going to hear from Paul's letter to the Ephesians. And there's a lot of sort of nebulous phrases thrown out here, so let's kind of dig into these now. He says: "you who were once far off." What does he mean by that? Who is he addressing here? Who does he think he's referring to? Well, I think he, Paul, was intending to address here the Gentiles, the uncircumcised, those Christians who were not Jewish to begin with but who were converts directly to Christianity. Remember that Paul is the disciple to the Gentiles, while Jesus's disciples - or apostle to the Gentiles, rather - while Jesus's disciples, his original followers, were all Jews.
[00:37:45] There were a lot of people that Paul traveled to and reached out to - mainly because he himself was a Roman citizen, so he had the freedom to travel - but he reached out to people who were not Jews to begin with. So when he says, you who were once far off, he's very likely talking about Gentiles and those who were uncircumcised, those who were not Jews to begin with, not part of the Jewish community... Jewish faith.
[00:38:20] And then what's happened? You've been "brought near."
[00:38:24] So... the near - the people that are near - are the chosen people, those who are part of the covenant. And how did that happen? How was that accomplished? That was a accomplished through "the blood of Christ." And whenever you hear blood of Christ... yes, first of all, we think immediately of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, absolutely! And that's what we're supposed to picture. But... we cannot turn aside, or not include in that thought, the idea of the Eucharist. Now, again, this is, this is uniquely Catholic.
[00:39:03] And for any of my Protestant friends that may be listening, I apologize for delving a little more deeply into Catholicism here. But when we go to Sunday Mass and we receive the Eucharist... the Body and Blood of Christ... that is part of the blood that Paul is talking about here. Remember when Paul was... when Paul was preaching and teaching, there was only one faith. The Protestant Reformation didn't happen until the middle ages, so there was only one faith. And if we go back and look at things like the Didache, which is an early account of what Christian worship was like, it talks about an event that is very, very similar to the Mass that we, as Catholics, attend every week. It talks about gathering together in one place...we see that as coming to Mass and gathering in the Church. It talks about the recitation of the readings and the letters... well, that's what we as Catholics would call the Liturgy of the Word. You know, the Didache talks about gathering and readings, and it talks about the meal - the shared meal and the intimacy of that meal - and that is the Eucharist. And we'll get a little more into that next week. I can give you a little preview here... we're actually going to take a break from Mark and we're going to jump into the Gospel of John for the next several weeks, but we're going to jump specifically into what is called the Bread of Life discourse. And that is John's theology of the Eucharist and what Jesus taught about his Body and Blood and giving that to us and feeding us with himself, with his very essence, his Body and Blood. So when it says - when Paul says here - "in the blood of Christ" yes, he is talking about Christ's Passion, Death on the Cross, and then his Resurrection, but he's also talking about the Eucharist. That would have been a very, very common event and occurrence in Paul's life. So he goes on to say: "for he is our peace" - Jesus is our peace. The point of being in God's presence... in Jesus' presence... in the presence of the Holy Spirit... the Trinity - is just that absolute, complete, and total love and acceptance and peace. So that's the whole point. So he is our peace.
[00:41:58] He who "made us" - both Gentiles and Jews - "one." He has brought us into a united community, all united - as Christians - through one faith and one baptism.
[00:42:20] So he's "broken down that dividing wall of hostility."
[00:42:25] We still allow those walls to grow and to be brought up.
[00:42:32] That's not what God intended for us.
[00:42:36] That's not what Jesus intended when he... when he started his church, when he called his disciples, when he gave Peter primacy, when he sent them out on mission. That was his intention: was unity and love and caring and light and joy and peace.
[00:43:02] That was his intention, not the hostility that we allow to creep into our hearts and our minds and our lives.
[00:43:14] Sometimes maybe we even nurture it. Sometimes we even let it grow because it's comfortable and familiar. And that is the most dangerous kind of hostility, because once it becomes familiar then it's harder to let it go.
[00:43:31] But that's what we're always called to do, is to let it go.
[00:43:37] And that's so important. We gotta break down those dividing walls of hostility. Sometimes we have to do it within our own hearts... sometimes we have to do it in our families... sometimes we have to do it in our communities... sometimes we have to do it in our churches.
[00:43:53] But that's what we're being called to do.
[00:43:56] And how does Christ do that?
[00:43:59] Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians, he says, "by abolishing in his flesh" - in other words, through his Sacrifice - "the law of commandments and ordinances." Now, this is a common, common theme in Paul.
[00:44:19] If you've read any of Paul's letters, you know - over and over again - he says that it is not the law that saves, it is Christ Jesus who saves.
[00:44:31] I said in the first episode of the podcast that when we live a good Christian life, that is sometimes the best way that we can share the Gospel with other people. And that's certainly what Paul is talking about here. He's talking about living the life that we are truly called to live, to be holy, to be saints...
[00:44:58] as Pope Paul VI invited us to be, to be saints. And what's the reason for that?
[00:45:05] To build unity, right? That Jesus might create within himself - and this is another common theme in Paul, he talks about the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ - so that within that one Body, within himself, one new man: one person, one people, one faith, one church united with one purpose. And that's what he's talking about. We are all brought together, one new man in place of two, in place of the separate...
[00:45:45] there's now unity in place of two. There's now one.
[00:45:49] One union of purpose, one church, one message, one Gospel, one light.
[00:45:59] So, we do that so that we will make peace... peace within our hearts, peace within our families, peace within our communities, peace within our world, God willing, and might reconcile us both those near and far - Gentile, Jew - all of us in one body through the Cross.
[00:46:26] Because that is really the greatest example of self sacrificing love.
[00:46:37] And remember, St. Thomas Aquinas said: love is willing the good of the other as other. We tend to think of love as a fluffy emotion... oh, look, that couple, they're so much in love. You know, I would argue that a better type of love is love that is lived every day in marriages across the country, people that have been married for 30, 40, 50, 60 years. That's the kind of love that we need to pursue, because that love always puts the other person first. And that's the love that Jesus showed us on the Cross when he gave himself up willingly for us and for our redemption, our salvation, our freedom from sin. He did it out of love, and that is the greatest example of what that means.
[00:47:41] So "thereby" - Paul tells us - "bringing the hostility to an end."
[00:47:49] There should be no more divisions. There are, because we always allow them to creep in, and that's on us... and that's where we have to be better people.
[00:47:59] And wouldn't it be nice if we could all just achieve that? Wouldn't it be nice if we could just snap our fingers and everything would be fixed? Doesn't happen that way.
[00:48:11] Anybody that's been in a long-lasting, good marriage will tell you that it takes a lot of work and that it's so easy at times to get off the right path, to go down the wrong direction, to sometimes head off in different directions.
[00:48:33] And sometimes you need that little nudge - sometimes a big nudge - to get you back on the right path and to bring things back together where everybody knows they're supposed to be. And that's also love. That also is a gift.
[00:48:54] That's part of what God intends... that unity.
[00:48:58] That's what God's plan for us is. That's the intent. So how did he do it? "He came and preached peace" and that's what we're called to do, too. We are called, every time we hear these scriptures, every time we hear God speak to us, we are strengthened by what we hear,
[00:49:22] we are given the mission to go out and share that with others, and we are prompted to go out to go and be the peace that we have been given.
[00:49:37] Peace, love, joy, light...
[00:49:44] these things are never, ever diminished by being shared. As a matter of fact, they just grow. And light is probably the easiest one to see. But if you take... if you're in a completely dark room and you light a candle, that's a dim light, but it helps people see. But if you have 100 people in that room - big room, obviously - you have 100 people in that room, and each one of them has a candle, and you pass that light around, wow!
[00:50:20] Now you have something by which you can see. Now you have a light that's worth sharing. And that's what... that's the mission that we're being given.
[00:50:34] That is the light we are to share. That is the love we are to share. That is the peace that we are called to share.
[00:50:45] So, peace to those who are far off, peace to those who are near. Sometimes that's in our own families...
[00:50:53] Sometimes that's friends that have drifted away...
[00:51:00] Sometimes it's strangers, people you may not even know yet. My husband has a... has a very, very firm belief that there are no strangers in this world... they're just friends he hasn't yet gotten to know.
[00:51:14] Those neighbors, those friends, those people that we have not yet encountered, those are just as important to share this peace with as the ones, the people we already know and sometimes maybe even more important than the ones we already know. Okay, so what's the upshot of this whole passage? Because through him, we both, everyone... those who are near, those who are far... the stranger, the friend, the parent, the child, the wife, the husband, the brother, the sister, everyone... we all have "access in one Spirit" - one Holy Spirit - "to the Father." And how do we express that access?
[00:52:07] I'm going to bring it back to prayer, because what did I start with? What was the question that I asked you before we started down this whole exploration... in this episode is... how important is prayer in your life?
[00:52:26] Because if you don't start from prayer... if we don't start from an attitude of thanksgiving... if we don't start from an attitude of a simple, you know, every day you wake up: Lord, thank you for another day.
[00:52:46] Thank you for the blessings that you've already given me. I know you're going to fill this day with blessings. You're going to give me challenges, too. But I know you're not going to walk away from me. I know you're not going to abandon me. You will give me the strength I need to get through this day and to share your light and your love with the people I encounter. If I just open myself to you and if I start out by allowing your love to flow into me. Because I will assure everyone right now that if we open ourselves, if we open our hearts and our minds to the Lord, we are never, ever, ever going to regret that choice! It's going to take us places that we may not have thought... it's going to take us down paths that we may not predicted... but it's always going to be a good outcome.
[00:53:48] So if you have any thoughts or comments that you would like to share, I would ask you to reach out to me with those questions or comments or thoughts and send me an email; you can reach me at
[email protected]. I would love to hear from you. Thank you for listening and until next we meet, may God shower his blessings upon you like a soft and gentle rain, and may he hold you safe and secure in the palm of his hand.
[00:54:19] From His Word to Our Hearts is produced by SFS Audio Solutions Jimmy Flask, audio engineer and sole proprietor. The content of the show was assembled by me, Sally Moriarty-Flask. Music composed by Jimmy Flask and used with permission of the composer. Information regarding the references used in preparing the exegesis for this podcast is available upon request. Thank you and God bless.
